BEA 2016 Recap: Day 3 Friday!!

Hiya there peeps!

Back again with the final BEA recap post for Friday and my leaving on Saturday.

FRIDAY

Friday started as usual, waking up waaay too early (jet lag is getting old dammit) and it worked to my advantage this time since my plan was to go super early so I could line up at the ticked authors area to try and get tickets for the awesome Maggie Stiefvater! Nikki was 100% with me on that, so we headed early to the floor, leaving Katie & Angie to sleep in a lil after their late night.

After quite the wait, we got our tickets and joined the entry line where I once again chatted with my roomies, formed the plan, chatted with other bloggy friends and as soon as the doors opened we headed towards the Macmillan booth to ensure a ticket for Caraval's signing and as soon we got them, we headed to the line for Maggie's signing.

Meeting Maggie Stiefvater was one of my highlights of Friday itself and BEA, she's quite awesome and she was cackling with glee when I was telling her about my stress eating while reading The Raven King!

Once I got my signed hardcover of Raven King (damn, that means I need to collect all the US hardcovers now too, since I already have the UK paperbacks), I went to take a lil walk around here and there before heading for the line for Caraval!

Stephanie was absolutely lovely and she gave me a hug for my bloggy friend Kristen that couldn't attend BEA and for Roshani Chokshi! I got my ARC signed and I keep making all the grabby hands at it! Patience, I must learn patience! (and finish some eARCs I have started).

Then after that I had nothing till 1 PM for a drop of the Strange The Dreamer Sampler with swag, so decided to roam around.

And who did I meet while heading towards the Penguin booth to ask if Sabaa Tahir's signing would be ticketed? The ever so awesome and adorable Susan Dennard AND Amie Kaufman! Both recognized me and hugged me and we chatted a lil bit. I was so completely overwhelmed that I completely forgot to take pics with them both!! Photo proof or not, it's simply MADE MY DAY!!

I then returned to hang out with my bloggy friends while they waited for other books and it was the moment to TAKE ALL THE PICS!!

With Angie

With Sabrina

With Cassi, Nikki, Octavia & Michelle

With my dear Mel

Then my absentmindedness proved to be good for something because at what I thought was 20 to 1, I headed to the Hachette booth to see if they were forming a line for the drop and when I went to ask one of the ladies she handed me a ticket for the signing! My R2D2-with-no-numbers-watch had fooled me and it was quarter to 12! I got to be 4th in line, meet Laini Taylor and get my sampler & swag! Big thank you to the lady being me in line that was kind enough to take pics for me!

More roaming around happened, I went to check one of the  panels that were going on at the Downtown Stage and went to chat with Mel and she was chatting with David Arnold (author of Mosquitoland) that introduced himself and was super nice!

After that I went with Shelly to the hotel for a spell (it's so awesome to be able to just pop in and out like that) and then back to the floor, she went to Harlequin and I went to check the line for Sabaa Tahir that was already quite large! So I just sat there and prepared to wait for tickets first and then the actual signing!

I was lucky enough to have Cassi and Nikki dropping by to keep me company and saving my spot on the Gemina line that had already formed too! The wait was rather uneventful until I was getting quite close to the front of the line when I heard screaming coming from the other side of the Penguin booth, where the Gemina line had formed and I knew that Jay Kristoff had dropped by to visit!

So, once it was my turn, I met Sabaa, told her how much I had loved the first book, got my ARC of Torch Against The Night signed, Sabaa said she loved my leather cuff and I ran to the autographing area.

I had saved my First In Line Pass for the Kendare Blake signing of Three Dark Crowns, because I love her, she is awesome and I'm beyond excited for the book! I skipped the quite long line, hugged her, we made T-Rex arms, talked about the excitement for the book, got a pic taken and I smiled apologetically at the people waiting in line as I left.

And once again I power walked from the autographing area to the Penguin booth to the Gemina line and to meet Jay Kristoff! He's an awesome dude, gave me a hug and I told him I really had to get a photo with him because I had met Amie in the morning and had failed at that! He chatted with us people in the line, took pics and then made a video.

Yes, Jay Fucking Tall Kristoff!!

Then it was all a question of sitting there with roomies and bloggy friends to wait for 3 PM! While we waited my dear Britt said one of my most awesome things I've been told recently, she said "You make people happy, you make people smile" and she DID make me smile BIG! Miss you so much Britt!

Eventually 3 PM hit and I GOT MY HANDS ON THE BOOK I WAS NOT LEAVING THE COUNTRY WITHOUT!

After that most of my roomies were going back to the hotel but I wanted to go the panel with Susan Dennard, Kristen Simmons and Sarah Porter, moderated by Katie of MundieMoms. So I headed there and had an absolute blast! If I was excited about Vassa and Metaltown before, after the panel even more! And of course I'm bloody well dying for Windwitch!

After that back to the hotel to be absolutely lazy for a while and wait till it was time to go for the Blogger Dinner that Octavia and Whitley had organized!

The dinner was a lot of fun, spent time with my roomies (Octavia made me cry!!), chatting with Ironteeth Becca, drinking my beer and Angie's because for some reason she didn't want it. Then spent some time also chatting with Rashika, Mishma and Nori until I left with Cassi, because we both were pretty tired and needed to crash.

I'm not sure if it was a combination of me feeling a bit old lady-ish and the jet lag, but I never had the energy to try and make it to the later night fun!

And that was Friday!

 DAY 3 Haul

SATURDAY

Saturday I tried to sleep in and managed to sleep till 7 am and then gave up, so I got up to get ready to leave, even if I had already packed almost everything on Friday itself. 17 books, two samplers, swag and 3 more books and a yoga mat (that was NOT a BEA thing, it was a gift from my friends in Wisconsin!!).

 

Since Shelly and I had shuttles around the same time we went down together after saying goodbye to my most of my roomies (those that were awake at least), and once again Octavia almost made my cry my eyes out, dammit!

The trip to the airport was uneventful, I was lucky and the security line wasn't long and to kill time waiting, I started reading GEMINA!

It's the perfect read to wait because you get so immersed that time flies and you don't even notice! It's a brilliant read that caused me to cuss out loud during a flight startling both the flight attendant and my row mates and also caused a need for booze and extra chocolate... Page 505, you have been warned!!

Got home on Sunday, unpacked all my goodies and after having lunch with my parents I went to bed around 5 pm and woke up around 10 am the next day! ;)

Vacation over, pile of books that keep calling my name and missing my roomies so much!! I'm even more saddened because I'll be missing BEA 2017 since I'll be attending ApollyCon instead (and visiting Wizarding World & NASA since it's in Orlando).

BEA 2016 Recap: Day 2 Thursday!!

Hello there!

Continuing with the BEA recap, we're up to Thursday and the first full day at BEA, that was quite full from the very beginning for me, even if I had sacrificed a few signings to attend since I had got the ARCs on the day before!

I woke up ungodly early (again), tried to go back to sleep (again), for the most part failed (again) and ended up waking up to do some yoga! I made myself some tea on the coffee maker (thank goodness for hotel rooms with coffee makers, even if they lack kettles, at least it means there's no need of a do-over of last year's "shower tea") and waiting for the rest of the roomies to wake and get ready!

We went pretty early to the floor (7 am) and we started really appreciating the awesomeness that being in a hotel directly connected to the convention center is! We were really close to the front of the line, and the wise people at McCormick brought out the ropes to make the line orderly and nice! Something that never occured to the people at the Javits last year...

While we were waiting I met more of my bloggy friends and met Hafsah & Asma again and they had these super cute notebooks they were giving out if you had the word code they tweeted! I got me one and even if yellow is not my fave colour, the notebook is so perfect for me! (and any other bookworms that love tea!).

A bit more plotting and pondering happened while we waited and then at 9 as soon as the doors opened, we headed straight to the Macmillan booth to get the tickets for their morning signing(s).

There was a bit of a rush, but I refused on principle to run (after last year's RUN FOR TRUTHWITCH!!) but I managed to get my ticket for Metaltown and promptly joined the signing line. I was super lucky to meet Lori M Lee on said line and we spent the waiting time chatting!

While waiting in line I met again the lovely Patricia & Anasheh from FFBC Tours, both Patri and me are some of the rare Spanish bloggers and we've been chatting for a long time but we hadn't met yet till BEA, how crazy is that! Patri totally made my day when she handed me her Leigh Bardugo ticket because she had other signings she wanted to attend and didn't want the ticket to go to waste. Thank you so much Patri, I hope some serious good karma will go your way!

Then it was time to get Metaltown signed and to meet the lovely Kristen Simmons! I loved chatting with her and I'm really excited to read the book while listening to the soundtrack of Les Mis!!

Right after the signing I said bye to Lori and run to the forming line for Of Fire And Stars! Since I was very close to the start of the line of Metaltown, I was also very close to the front of the line for Of Fire And Stars and even a lot of people used their Front of the Line Pass for it (I really don't blame them, this a book we're all super excited for) which slowed the line quite a bit for us going regular, and the line ended up being cut because there weren't enough books. I was lucky enough to get my copy and to meet the so very lovely Audrey Coulthurst!

After getting the book signed and the lovely extra swag, I quickly headed to the signing line for Leigh Bardugo that was quiiiite loooong but luckily there were no issues since they had as many samplers as they had tickets! Meeting Leigh again was fantastic and the Macmillan people with her were lovely chatting with you and making sure they got pics if you wanted them! I'm probably not gonna read the sampler (TEASE!) but I so wanted to meet Leigh again!

After the Leigh signing I had nothing else until 1 pm when the drop for the afternoon Macmillan tickets would happen. And since I had nothing else in my list... I roamed around for a bit, spent time chatting with friends on other lines like the lovely Jenny from Supernatural Snark and her mum!

Then the wait for 1 PM started and there were some false starts at forming a line one both sides of the Macmillan booth, but they didn't allow any of them to become official and kept saying that they expected an orderly line to form at 1 PM, which anyone seeing the massive amount of people around the booth knew it was a clear impossibility... and it happened, what I call a MOB, and has been known as the Macmillan Stampede of 2016.

I was again refusing to run or push people on principle but I was moved along by the mass of people and ended up quite behind on the massive line, despite having been waiting for nearly an hour. Fortunately I managed to get the tickets for Marissa Meyer and Sarah Porter, so I have to thank my good karma for that!

After that rather messy ticket handing, the Macmillan people learnt fast and started organizing lines for all signings very early and very well, so big props there! I joined the line for Vassa in the Night and had my protein bars lunch while chatting with my roomies and other fellow bloggers that had survived the stampede.

Not only I got to meet Sarah Porter who is adorable and get my signed ARC but I also got to meet the awesome Ksenia Winnicki! Too bad we didn't take a pic together this time!

Once I got my Vassa I went onto joining the line for Marissa Meyer and Heartless and while waiting in line, my dear Britt came with a copy of Stalking Jack The Ripper and she told me that the lovely Kerri Maniscalco was signing them at the Hachette booth and there I run! I was so excited that I completely forgot to grab my phone so I could take a pic with her! She's so adorableee and lovely! I got my ARC signed and I'm still trying to restrain myself to read it right away!

Then I got my absolutely gorgeous edition of the Heartless ARC in a really fancy box and met the lovely Marissa Meyer again! No photo this time.

Then I went around a few booths, bumped into bloggers and roomies, grabbed a brownie at Harper and ended up returning there to wait with Jenny's mum for the 4 PM drop for Female of the Species, and after that... back to the hotel room!

My Day 2 haul!

 A bunch of my roomies were going to publisher parties but those of us uninvited stayed in one room, ordered food and ended up enjoying a lovely Hamilton singalong! There's video proof of that since Michelle seemed to be rather amused by our singing!

Most of my roomies were off to publisher parties, Nikki was the one that returned early and we ended up chatting books for a long while and she totally convince me that I needed to get Audible and listen to The Scorpio Races (and I'm doing just that next month!). ;)

BEA 2016 Recap: Day 1 Tuesday & Wednesday!

Hello there guys!!

Finally, my recap of my BEA 2016 trip is here!! It's been a few days in the making but BEA brain is a thing and if we add my vacation time, the blogging slump and coming back from vacation to real life and work... Well, it was bound to take a while!

Last year I did 3 recaps, one per day and this year it'll be the same format again! After trying to do all three days in one post and looking at the lenght of it and my overly verbose self... three posts it is!

All three of them filled to the brim with photos and my overly enthusiastic rambling about my amazing room mates, all the awesome peeps that I met, the brilliant authors I was lucky enough to meet and of course LE BOOKS!

TUESDAY & WEDNESDAY

On Tuesday I left Wisconsin where I had been staying with friends of mine to ride a bus to Chicago. Once I arrived at the hotel I met most of my bloggy friends and room mates doing the check-in already, which meant loads of squealing and hugging and happy noises to the surprise and moderate amusement of the Hyatt staff.

I've said it before and I will say it time and again, the best thing about BEA is always the people! I adore all my roomies and without them BEA wouldn't be a a tenth of how awesome it is! If you are planning to do BEA, make sure you do it with friends! I adore my BEA Duck Squad and I cannot wait till I can meet them all again!!

We're missing Michelle here!

So thank you so very much Angie, Becca, Britt, Cassi, Christina, Katie, Michelle, Nikki, Octavia, Rachael and Shelly!!

After getting settled in the rooms and a few lil hiccups, we all went on a walk to go shopping at Target. Yes, I'm always willing to go along for all that but I had no idea why we were going there, but people needed to buy some snacks and water... and we ended up filling our cart with that AND loads of booze... Adulting hard right there! Given that I had already packed snacks in advance, I settled for some water, boring one that I am.

I found this stand for sangría and that price hilarious!

After that we were all extremely hungry and wanted to go to Lou Malnati's for Chicago's famous Deep Dish pizza! We split in two groups, the ones that were so hungry (and a bit tired) that wanted to go now and the others that wanted to wait for a while. My jet lagged arse was hungry and tired so off we went! The wait at Lou Malnati's was looooong but holy smokes, the pizza was worth it!

 Om nom nom nom!!

Then back to the hotel room where we left Katie locked out of the room without realizing it... the stupid bolt fell a lil to the side and the door couldn't be open! Thank goodness for all of us rooming in the same floor!

Wednesday started with me waking up at ungodly hours (yaaaay jet lag!), trying to get some more sleep, failing, getting up and doing some yoga and then going for a Blogger breakfast at Yolk organized by the lovely Wendy from Book Scents where I had Potato Pancakes that were super yummy but couldn't eat them all (Americans, you have huge portions!!). From there we went to get our badges and then sat on the line to wait for the floor to open. The waiting time is always good to plan and see what drops might be and study the map to see where all the booths you want to visit are in relation to each other and , since I had no signings on my schedule for Wed.

As it happened there was a drop for Double Down by Gwenda Bond as soon as the doors opened so I went straight there! Then roaming around the booths to get their schedules and I ended up grabbing a few books that freed my Thursday schedule! I was quite lucky to get The Forgetting because right before the drop I had asked about it at the booth and they had no idea if there was gonna be a drop (WTF?!), also cheated a lil bit at the "roll the dice" game at Hachette because I really just wanted Blood For Blood, got my so very awaited A Shadow Bright and Burning (Penguin drop!) and asked about Ghostly Echoes at the booth and was so very lucky to be handed one copy! Harper's drop for Aerie was a bit of a mess, but no harm done (and they learnt from the experience!).

Also it was great that I met so many of my bloggy friends like Jenny, Mel, Hafsah & Asma, and many more!

Day 1 haul!!

 After all the excitement of the first day that wasn't as laid back as I was expecting but that was oh so very productive we all went for dinner at Shake Shack and oh boy CHEESE FRIES!! I understand why all my friends were so keen on it! Also, foreigner speaking here, those buzzers they give you so you can pick up your order when it's ready? Such a good idea!

Then after the food it was another trip to another Target, but on our way there we stopped at a souvenir store so I could get some shopping done and then we took an Uber back to the hotel and soon to bed for me because I was pretty much beaten and jet lag is a bitch!

BEA 2015 Recap - Day 3 Friday!!

Well, it feels nice blogging a bit more continously now, but I'm sadly too busy with the apartment preparations to even dare to hope to have time to have a minimum of two posts up per week, let alone a more regular posting schedule!

Still, here I am with the recap for BEA Day 3, Friday or the DAY-WHEN-ALL-THINGS-HAPPEN-AT-THE-SAME-TIME!!

Once again, I owe all my awesome bloggy & bookish friends for being kind enough to send me all the pics because my phone is a piece of sh*te! THANK YOU!

FRIDAY

Once again, we decided to get up early to be at the Javits when the lines are just beginning to form, which means that in the morning I wake up, get up and get ready, and wait for the rest of my roomies to get up while having my tea (which is a rather so-so kinda tea because there's no kettle and I made it every morning with the scalding water from the shower, so... well, yeah). Once again, breakfast from the deli (cream cheese icing bagels for the win, I miss having them for breakfast!).

This time our big group of ducklings was divided between Black Widow and Six of Crows, so our crew was split gone to line up at two different entries to the BEA floor. The Six of Crows line (closer to the authographing area) was Britt, Sarah, Cassie, Melissa, Cristina and myself. This line was a lil better organized, even if we were told to squish together several times, there were no other weird shenanigans!

Once we got in, the pre-line for Leigh Bardugo got started by the great staff at the authographing area, those ladies in the neon green tees knew what to do!

While waiting in line I was hoping to spot Kim and Layla from The Midnight Garden and author Jen Ellision, but no such luck, too many people all over the place, so that's the one big bummer from BEA, not being able to meet these wonderful ladies!

But I got to meet the very lovely and purple-haired and super awesome Melissa Grey that was nice enough to take pics with us and sign bookmarks!! *squeal*

The line for Six of Crows was rather insane, because loads of people used their "first in line" passes for it, so they realized they had miscounted the about of ARCs they had, and had to cut the line early. We were lucky enough to get ours signed and Leigh Bardugo was brilliant! She was super nice and lovely and took time to talk and sign even when she was being hurried! Also, some sort of magical powers because look at her hair being flawless even with the NYC humidity!!

And after Leigh Bardugo I was good till the Soundless signing, so I just roamed around a bit, hang out with my roomies, met with Jenny from Supernatural Snark again, had lunch with Britt, Sarah and the adorable Xander from Forever Bookish (he was doing BEA with his mum and both were beyond adorable!).

Right now, as I'm writing this recap, I'm wondering if I got just two book on Friday or if I got three as my brain seems to be telling me, but I cannot for the life of me remember what other could have been that third book? So yeah, let's just assume I just got Six of Crows and Soundless!

I used my "first in line" pass for Soundless but was a lil disappointed when we were told "no photos and no personalization" and that bummed out feeling along with the fact that we were saying bye to a lot of our bookish friends meant that I didn't have the energy to try and stay for the Rae Carson line (I already had the ARC but wanted to meet Rae) so we left soon after...

BEA was an amazing experince but it also left me so very tired!!
Some lessons learnt on how to make BEA better for myself: Plan differenly next year and make sure you arrive a few days before BEA so the bloody jet lag doesn't kill you as much! Add extra maybes to your schedule so if you get out of a line early you know what you might want to try for and not just wander aimlessly and end up missing things!

I'm really REALLY looking forward to attending BEA16 because I'm already planning and plotting with my bloggy/bookish friends and it's gonna be EPIC!!

BEA 2015 Recap: Thursday - Day 2!!

Hello again guys!

I'm still damned busy but I want to try and work on the recaps for all 3 days of BEA for this week, so here I am again!

Today it's all about BEA Day 2 - Thursday!

Once again, thank you everyone for allowing me to steal your pics for this recap!!

THURSDAY

Me and the roomies had agreed on waking up super early to be at the queue so we'd get a good spot to try and make it to the Passenger signing! My #1 priority was the Firewalker signing by Josephine Angelini, but my roomies were so excited about Passenger and so sure of our BEA game, that they convinced me to go with them to the Passenger signing and then run to the Firewalker line at the authographing area (which was much better organized than the entering BEA line by faaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaar!).

Waking up early for me was a piece of cake, because JET LAG! but everyone else had a bit of a harder time, we then went to grab our breakfast at a deli (YAY for cream cheese bagels!), took an Uber and parked ourselves in the line for BEA around 6:45, mission acomplished!

We were joined by the rest of our crew aka the ducklings, Octavia (Mama Duck!), Nikki, Christina, Cassi, Melissa, Cristina (and her brother) and Dan! Having breakfast, chatting, plotting, sharing info, dancing to Christina's music... the works!

Meeting people at the line is fantastic because it's when you have the most time to chat! But BEA staff are a real disaster when it come to organizing lines, like bringing a part of the line from behind to the front to make rows of four, like WHAT IN THE BLOODY F!?!

Before being allowed to get in at 9 am we were repeatedly admonished "DO NOT RUN!", they must have been scared of having a repeat of the Truthwitch avalanche! ;) As such, I didn't run, just walked briskly and made it at a very decent spot for the Passenger line with Britt and Sarah. We chatted with Jamie, I met the lovely Gillian from Writer of Wrongs (I couldn't believe she knew who I am!) and had a barrels of laughs with the very unique Marlon from We Live & Breathe Books.

Meeting Alexandra Bracken was simply amazing! She's freaking adorable and so wonderful to chat with! She was telling me all about how she wants to come to Spain on vacation!! Resisting reading Passenger early will be VERY hard!!

And in case you were wondering, that's my TARDIS cardigan and my custom made Piwicakes tote that Becca painted for me! I got a lot of people complimenting my tote, my R2D2 bag and my TARDIS cardigan! Clearly bookish peeps are my people! ;)

Right after getting my book signed I parted ways with my roomies to head to the authographing area while they went to another drop. The line for Josephine Angelini was not too bad and my roomies soon joined me! Josie was adorable and her publicist commented that I was the person coming from father away they'd had!

Proof that my roomies are the bestest, Becca grabbed me an ARC of A Curious Tale of the In-Between by Lauren DeStefano because she knew I wanted it!

Then I decided I wanted to stay around the authographing area because I wanted to meet & hopefully get a pic with Wendy Higgins and Sara Raasch! I planned to wait till their lines were over to approach them, and while I was around the Wendy Higgins line I met Jenny from Supernatural Snark!!

Jenny and I have been commenting and chatting in each other blog comments for a long time and I was super excited to meet her at BEA! We spent the time at Wendy's line chatting and she's as adorable in person as in her blog and Twitter!

Wendy was also an absolute sweetheart and I was beyond happy to get to meet her!! My phone failed but Wendy took a pic of us with her phone and I'm still overwhelmingly happy that she has that photo as her Twitter avatar!! *hyperventilates*

I also got to meet and say hello to Sara that was lovely, but no photo because my phone sucks...

And then joined the line for Heather Demetrios that was lovely as well! I got a super cute hamsa charm along with a lovely postcard and my signed copy of Blood Passage! Now I can read book 1 and survive the awful cliffhanger I read about! If Heather Demetrios made me love her contemporary books, I cannot wait to read her fantasy series!

I spent some more time hanging around with Jenny and her absolutely adorable mum, then joined the roomies for a lil while, but then they went for the Libba Bray signing and I had nothing in my schedule till the Fall Out by Gwenda Bond signing, that was my other priority for the day!

I decided to go to the Disney booth and get in line to get the Magnus Chase sampler and the shield! for Sarah, I got there super early, joined the by then tiny line thanks to Melissa (thanks girl!) and spent the time chatting with Jon and Nori and also met the lovely Hazel from Stay Bookish! She made feel a lil bad for my poor camera at the hotel room, since she had her DSLR with her like a total pro!

And not only did we get the shield and the sampler (that I gave to Sarah) but we also got a totally tasty cupcake that I obviously ate as a reward! ;)

Still munching on my cupcake I dropped by the Capstone booth and saw that the line for Gwenda Bond was already forming, so I stayed there!

Gwenda recognized me by my Twitter handle and promised that she would write a sequel for The Woken Gods one day just for me (which probably means, so I can stop bugging her about it!). She was awesome all around and rocked her leather skirt as Lois herself would have! ;)

After that I joined my roomies and soon after that we headed back to our hotel room, so Becca could get ready for the Mcmillan party! While she was there mingling and having a blast, Britt, Sarah and I stayed in our room, had some nice NYC pizza and tried to recover! I decided to stay up till Becca returned and soon after she returned, I crashed the first one, once again!

My loot for Day 2! I did pretty well on restraining myself so these fit very well on my tote! One advantage of limiting yourself because of flight restrictions is that you don't need to take a rolling suitcase to the Javits, because books must fit in your tote!

More to come in the final day of BEA, stay tuned!